Donald Trump asked the New York courts on Monday to postpone his historic criminal trial by at least a month, from March 25, in a case of payments to an adult film actress. The lawyers of the former president of United States invokes the argument of its criminal immunity which will be debated by the Federal Supreme Court in Washington from April 25.
According to a court document dated March 7 and made public Monday by the Supreme Court (Trial Court, Editor’s note) of the State of New York for the jurisdiction of Manhattan, this “court should adjourn the trial pending the “examination by the Supreme Court of the scope of the doctrine of presidential immunity”. On March 6, the highest court of the United States set April 25 for the debates of the nine supreme judges on the criminal immunity initiated by Donald Trump as ex-president (2017-2021), after taking up this highly sensitive issue on February 28 eight months before the presidential election.
Prison unlikely
Targeted by four criminal proceedings, the 77-year-old Republican candidate is seeking through multiple appeals to go to trial as late as possible, in any case after the November 5 election. Mr. Trump is due to appear in court on March 25 in New York – a first for a former US president – for a case of payments to a former pornographic film star, Stormy Daniels. New York Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg prosecuted 34 accounting frauds carrying a maximum sentence of four years in prison if the former White House tenant is found guilty.
The courts could, however, impose an alternative sentence and not send him behind bars. Donald Trump, who pleads not guilty, is accused of having disguised the accounts of his real estate empire Trump Organization to conceal $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, just before the November 2016 presidential election. It was necessary, according to the accusation, that she remains silent about an alleged sexual relationship in 2006 when he was already married to Melania Trump. Mr. Trump has no relationship with Ms. Clifford.
Trump has already managed to postpone a federal criminal trial in Washington scheduled to begin on March 4 for “conspiracy against the American state”, i.e. his illicit attempts, notably on January 6, 2021, to reverse the results of the American state. The November 2020 election won by Joe Biden. The procedure is suspended while the question of presidential criminal immunity is decided by the Supreme Court.